Lord Peter Views the Body by Dorothy L. Sayers Page B

countenance, ‘except that this man tried to palm it off on me.’
        ‘I saw it fall off this man’s carrier just the other side of Hatfield,’ repeated Mr Walters firmly, ‘and I rode after him for thirty miles trying to stop him. That’s all I know about it, and I wish to God I’d never touched the beastly thing.’
        ‘Nor do I know anything about it personally,’ said the car-owner, ‘but I fancy I know what it is.’
        ‘What’s that?’ asked the superintendent sharply.
        ‘I rather imagine it’s the head of the Finsbury Park murderer – though, mind you, that’s only a guess.’
        ‘That’s just what I’ve been thinking myself,’ agreed the superintendent, glancing at a daily paper which lay on his desk, its headlines lurid with the details of that very horrid crime, ‘and, if so, you are to be congratulated, constable, on a very important capture.’
        ‘Thank you, sir,’ said the gratified officer, saluting.
        ‘Now I’d better take all your statements,’ said the superintendent. ‘No, no; I’ll hear the constable first. Yes, Briggs?’
        The constable, the A.A. man, and the two motor-cyclists having given their versions of the story, the superintendent turned to the motorist.
        ‘And what have you got to say about it?’ he enquired. ‘First of all, your name and address.’
        The other produced a card, which the superintendent copied out and returned to him respectfully.
        ‘A bag of mine, containing some valuable jewellery, was stolen from my car yesterday, in Piccadilly,’ began the motorist. ‘It is very much like this, but has a cipher lock. I made enquiries through Scotland Yard, and was informed today that a bag of precisely similar appearance had been cloak-roomed yesterday afternoon at Paddington, main line. I hurried round there, and was told by the clerk that just before the police warning came through the bag had been claimed by a man in motor-cycling kit. A porter said he saw the man leave the station, and a loiterer observed him riding off on a motor-bicycle. That was about an hour before. It seemed pretty hopeless, as, of course, nobody had noticed even the make of the bike, let alone the number. Fortunately, however, there was a smart little girl. The smart little girl had been dawdling round outside the station, and had heard a motor-cyclist ask a taxi-driver the quickest route to Finchley. I left the police hunting for the taxi-driver, and started off, and in Finchley I found an intelligent boy-scout. He had seen a motor-cyclist with a bag on the carrier, and had waved and shouted to him that the strap was loose. The cyclist had got off and tightened the strap, and gone straight on up the road towards Chipping Barnet. The boy hadn’t been near enough to identify the machine – the only thing he knew for certain was that it wasn’t a Douglas, his brother having one of that sort. At Barnet I got an odd little story of a man in a motor-coat who had staggered into a pub with a ghastly white face and drunk two double brandies and gone out and ridden off furiously. Number? – of course not. The barmaid told me. She didn’t notice the number. After that it was a tale of furious driving all along the road. After Hatfield, I got the story of a road-race. And here we are.’
        ‘It seems to me, my lord,’ said the superintendent, ‘that the furious driving can’t have been all on one side.’
        ‘I admit it,’ said the other, ‘though I do plead in extenuation that I spared the women and children and hit up the miles in the wide, open spaces. The point at the moment is—’
        ‘Well, my lord,’ said the superintendent, ‘I’ve got your story, and, if it’s all right, it can be verified by enquiry at Paddington and Finchley and so on. Now, as for these two gentlemen—’
        ‘It’s perfectly obvious,’ broke in Mr Walters, ‘the bag dropped off this man’s carrier, and, when he saw